Philip Hind, National Program Manager, Data Standards and e-commerce presented an overview of the Data Standards and e-commerce project which forms part of the SuperStream initiative in the Stronger Super program; outlining the approach being adopted in terms of scope, consultation, design and implementation issues.
Through the Treasury-led SuperStream Working Group, significant progress has been made on setting the vision, design principles and business transactions in scope for the project.
Work is proceeding on getting to a target date for publishing a mandated data standard by December 2011.
A series of design issues are currently being worked through including:
- what is meant by 'SBR compatible standards'
- what enabling services such as TFN validation may be required to address processing integrity issues, and
- how POI issues need to be addresses.
The role and status of existing pilot initiatives in the industry is also being examined.
Fund representatives sought clarification regarding:
- what form will the TFN validation enabling service take and what delivery timeframe is anticipated
- the ATO advised it was expected the service would support both a 'batch' and 'one by one' validation process however this was still being worked through. It is likely the process would involve
- funds submitting member TFN and other personal details (eg name, date of birth, etc) to ATO;
- the ATO would apply a multi point matching process to determine a match and provide confirmation or otherwise in a bulk report back to the fund.
- the ATO acknowledged the need to ensure the service can handle significant volumes.
The delivery timeframe has not yet been established.
Any update on the ceased payments notice.
The ATO advised the government's policy intention was that funds would be responsible for:
- detecting breaks in regular employer payment of contributions, and
- notify the employer and the member that contributions have not been paid.
This requirement would provide a timely reminder to employers who may be late in paying and enable an employee to take action early in relation to protecting their contributions.
Administratively, this represents a significant challenge. Concerns exist about how funds can identify the nature of payment (ie regular or irregular), such that they can correctly detect a break in regular payments, given numerous factors including seasonal employment, injury and so on.
The ATO is mindful that any process implemented would need to avoid noise being created in industry with notices flowing unnecessarily ('false positives') and people having to respond to issues that are not a problem (e.g. the employer payment is irregular in nature).
The ATO advised an issues paper is about to be presented to the SuperStream Working Group later in week (commencing Monday 28 March 2011). Further information will be provided once the issues paper has been properly considered.
No decision has been made in regard to the likely implementation date.
The ATO added this measure is separate from the requirement for employers to report through payslips the relevant information about contributions that have been paid (not just accrued). This requirement is the responsibility of the Department of Employment of Workplace Relations to implement.
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Last Modified: Monday, 27 June 2011